March Madness indeed!

I'm like my mom in a lot of ways. Well, maybe not a LOT of ways, but definitely at least a few ways. One of those ways is that I can sit down and watch pretty much any sport, no matter who is playing. Football isn't my favorite, but I'll watch it. Baseball is probably my favorite sport to watch, followed closely by college basketball. The pros just don't do it for me--NCAA is where it's at. And I really only get into it at this time of year--tournament time. :)

Games for this year's tournament started this past week and have been playing on our television all weekend. Of course it was exciting that the Minnesota Gophers made it to the tournament--unfortunately they lost in the first round. But what's been really fun is that there have been some upsets. In the first round, #14 seed Ohio beat #3 seed Georgetown and #13 seed Murray State beat #4 seed Vanderbilt. In the second round, #11 seed Washington beat #3 seed New Mexico and #10 seed St. Mary's beat #2 seed Villanova.

But the MOST EXCITING game in the second round was last night with #1 Kansas against #9 Northern Iowa University. Kansas wasn't just ranked #1 in its bracket--it was ranked #1 in the whole tournament and favored by many to win the whole thing. But Northern Iowa brought their A game and were out in front for most of the game. NIU's lead was around 10 points for much of the second half. Kansas started coming back pretty close with a couple minutes to go, and thanks to a 3-point shot by Kansas in the last few seconds, the final score was only a difference of two points: 69 to 67. Incredible! There were so many times in the last three minutes that I screamed--for a second, it seemed like Kansas could really do it, then NIU would do something amazing. It was insane! And SO fun to watch. And seriously, who doesn't love a great underdog story?

I was telling Dan, it would have been so fun to hear what the coach of NIU told his team before the game. Like, "Okay, guys. We're playing Kansas. So, do your best and we'll see what happens, but they're pretty good." :) Then when it was over, I would have loved to hear them talking. I actually said that it would be crazy to hear what they were talking about in the Kansas locker room, and Dan assured me they weren't talking at all. :)

Happy March Madness!